


Covenant

by Cattraine



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-20
Updated: 2011-08-20
Packaged: 2017-10-22 21:17:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,746
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/242689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cattraine/pseuds/Cattraine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Better to Reign in Hell than to serve in Heaven."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Covenant

_"Better to Reign in Hell than to serve in Heaven."_

 _\--John Milton, 1608-1674_

 

There is no greater pleasure than the end of unrelenting pain.

John Winchester fell gasping to his knees. He could breathe again. He could see again. His skin no longer felt like it was on fire. The endless, tormenting whispers in his ears were gone. His body was--intact. Distantly he wondered what new torment was about to begin. He had been here forever. He would be here for eternity, until the end of all days.

Clawed hands grasped him, lifted him gently to his feet. He stood, swaying, in a dim stone cavern; there was a thick layer of shiny black sand beneath his feet. Obsidian, he cataloged absently. The demons that held him upright were agitated, hissing and snarling among themselves as they ushered him down the tunnel.

They were afraid, he realized. And despite himself, he found himself taking an interest in his surroundings for the first time in--how long?

He was pulled carefully into a round stone ante-chamber, and he gasped with shock when he was lifted and dropped hastily into a pool of dark water, that reeked of sulfur. He had expected to be boiled alive; instead it was warm and pleasant on his naked skin.

Suddenly there were hands on him again, slim and soft, bathing and then rinsing his body from head to feet. Blinking wet lashes, he found himself being tended by three pale, sloe-eyed demonesses. They were exquisitely, inhumanly beautiful.

The one washing his face and torso was milk white with night black hair flowing, wet and sleek over her slender, naked shoulders. She cupped his face with small ebony taloned hands, looking deep into his eyes. She said nothing, but her eyes were eloquent under winged brows.

What was she trying to tell him?

He waited for the torture to begin, the talons to start digging into his vulnerable human flesh, the endless rape of body, spirit and mind to start again. Instead, there was an impatient hiss from one of his hulking guards, waiting at the edge of the pool. He was lifted from the pool, dried with soft cloths and then dressed.

Wonderingly he fingered the worn cloth of the jacket, the hem of his flannel shirt, curling his toes in familiar boots. They were his old favorites, his most comfortable, the battered fatigue jacket and red plaid shirt bought in a long ago Goodwill or army surplus outlet.

This was the prelude to some new torture he decided.

Again huge, clawed hands grasped his biceps and he was urged to move. He stumbled for a few feet, unaccustomed to walking--unaccustomed to having feet. As he was led up the tunnels he realized he had an audience. They lined the walls, both demon and damned, and watched avidly, eyes hungry as he was ushered along. Their attention was so intense that the silence was disconcerting.

The walk itself seemed to take an eternity. Maybe it did. Time passed differently here. Sometimes it didn't pass at all.

He felt himself gaining strength as he moved, felt no pain or fatigue at all. He wondered at that, fleetingly. They moved along briskly, along miles of corridors, up an endless flight of carved stone stairs.

Of course, he thought, with a flicker of grim amusement. There are no elevators in Hell.

Finally he was led into a high wide chamber, where they stopped at a set of massive stone doors, heavy and carved with runes and pictographs. Someone was waiting there. He was disconcertingly dapper. A man-a humanoid- with a gray, ancient seamed face wearing an immaculate black suit with crisp white collared shirt and tie.

John stared. What was a Reaper doing in Hell?

The Reaper gestured for him to follow, turning to walk through the slowly opening doors. John followed, his demonic cadre of guards flanking him. They stirred uneasily, and he caught the scent of their fear, heavy and pungent with piss and sulfur, and for the first time his own indifference for what to come was replaced by uneasiness.

As he walked through the doors, the light nearly blinded him. Squinting around through tearing eyes, he saw walls of bone and white stone and tall windows of shimmering, molten, multi-colored glass. He was standing in a twisted parody of a Catholic cathedral, made over into a High Court of Hell.

He was led across a black marble floor to the high dais at the end of the huge, echoing room. Crowds of winged and clawed demons stirred and parted before them. The silence was eerie--unnatural, after becoming accustomed to the endless screaming of the damned.

This was also a recent battlefield, he realized, as he stepped over a thick puddle of ichor. There were twisted remnants of demonic corpses strewn across the room, piles of their smoldering corpses, and here and there others huddled, horribly wounded. Some raised their heads and broken limbs beseechingly to him as he passed, pleading silently for a mercy he could not give.

The Reaper stopped at the foot of the dais and inclined his head to the creatures waiting there, then stood quietly to one side. Curious now, John raised his head to see what High Lord of Chaos ruled this particular Hell.

Black feathered, iridescent wings and lanky golden limbs, he wore only heavy gold and a hip drape of heavy silk velvet that was the exact shade of wet blood. John looked up and up a long bare, sculpted torso and arms with big hands that held the bone hilt of a wicked, curved blade easily across his lap. He wore carved armlets that glinted in the light along with a wide pectoral collar that covered broad shoulders. At the end was a handsome, impassive face with familiar tilted eyes and a head of dark, shaggy hair that reached to his shoulders.

Sam regarded him with calm indifference, his eyes pitch black.

It was like being gut hooked. John couldn't resist the heavy clawed hand on his shoulder that forced him to kneel at his younger son's feet. He could only stare, his throat closed tight with grief, with horror.

Before he could rally himself to move, to try and speak, the man standing beside the throne moved.

Prowling with a familiar bowed gait to crouch easily on the dais just above John, he flicked a look at the guard who held him that had that demon cringing away, whining uneasily.

Barefoot and clad only in a pair of woven leather leggings that revealed more patches of pale skin than they hid, Dean regarded him with feline eyes of molten gold.

He too had changed, become something--other. Something beautiful, alien and deadly.

Milk white skin spattered with golden freckles, short dark hair streaked with bronze and glints of silver. His torso was bare as well, scarred with a tattooed knot of sharp, black thorns that writhed across his shoulders and collarbones to meet at the pierced and bleeding crimson heart over the center of his chest. His nipples were both pierced, a thin chain linking the tiny rings, that teed down his torso to a third glint of gold at his navel. He wore a wide, inscribed collar around his throat. The leggings, if the scanty, woven strips of dull black leather, red silk and snakeskin could be called that, were cut so low on his lean hips that John could see the glint of a cock ring.

Worse, a long barbed tail lashed restlessly behind him.

This sensual, collared creature was not the warrior son John thought he knew.

Almost as though he read his father's mind, Dean smiled. That familiar sweet curve of his son's full lips on this exquisite, demonic face hurt.

Then Dean reached out and carefully placed a familiar amulet of protection over his father's head. Then he tucked something heavy snugly inside his jacket, into the hidden holster sewn there. Still gazing into his father's eyes, Dean gave him another smile, tenderly straightened the collar of his jacket, hands lingering for a long moment. Then he stood away, eyes sad.

Hands carefully raised John to his feet, turning him to face the crowd. Numbly he stared at the thousands of hungry, avid eyes that regarded him so greedily. Greedy for what? Behind him Dean hissed out a single sibilant word, and, as one, the entire court dropped hard and fast, and with faces to the floor, bowed low.

John stared. He had expected to be torn apart. He tried to turn back to the dais, but a cool hand on his shoulder stopped him. He found himself face to face with the Reaper. There was an oddly compassionate look in his eyes. John opened his mouth to question, but found he could not speak. He felt strangely disorientated, sick to his stomach--everything felt off. He tried to turn back to his sons, but caught only a final glimpse of them before everything faded to black.

**********************

John Winchester stood dazed at the center of a crossroads. It was a crisp spring morning and it had been raining. He heard the birds begin to sing in the trees, and the sun was glinting on the horizon. He could smell the wet new green of the plants in the fields surrounding him. A red-winged blackbird warbled out a silver thread of song. The mist felt like tears against his skin. He was free from hell.

He held his hands out palms up and raised his face to the sky, to the rain. He was alive. He felt something bump his ribcage and slowly he slid one hand inside his jacket and withdrew the Colt that his son had placed there. When he opened the chamber two inscribed silver bullets rolled into his calloused palm. He didn't have to read the names engraved there. He remembered everything, including the last glimpse of his sons in Hell.

Dean had stepped back to lean against the throne, arm around his brother's shoulders, and Sam slid one arm possessively around Dean's hips. For a moment the picture had wavered, replaced with the image of two smiling teenage boys sitting on the hood of a black Impala.

John Winchester raised his head to the morning sun and howled.

 

 _"The Mind is its own place, and it itself can make heaven of Hell, a hell of Heaven."_

 _\-- John Milton 1608-1674_


End file.
